Scrutinize the Obvious

In The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), Dallas Willard writes that it is God’s desire to invite all of us to participate in Himself. But such invitation is turned down by human overfamiliarity. He notes:

The major problem with the invitation now is precisely overfamiliarity. Familiarity breeds unfamiliarity—unsuspected unfamiliarity, and then contempt. People think they have heard the invitation. They think they have accepted it—or rejected it. But they have not. The difficulty today is to hear it at all. Genius, it is said, is the ability to scrutinize the obvious. Written everywhere, we may think, how could the invitation be subtle, or deep? It looks like the other graffiti and even shows up in the same places. But that is part of the divine conspiracy. (p. 11)

“Genius…is the ability to scrutinize the obvious.” I think this is an insightful statement. It is Willard’s observation over the years in the Christian industry. After being Christians for a few years, we know that we’ve learned just enough to say that Christian faith is very familiar. We may not be able to articulate our faith systematically. We may even admit that we don’t know much. But we rarely say, “I never heard of this sermon before. It’s entirely new to me.” We may say that some sermons are profound and deepen our faith. However, to a certain extent, they are familiar.

Christian growth is extremely difficult because it requires us to look beyond what is familiar. I believe that in the early years of Christian journey, our learning tends to be passive. In early stage of Christian faith, everything is new: the gospel is fresh; the Bible is interesting; most pastors and teachers are great; and we have a sense of expectancy in hearing and learning. Basic Christian faith can be grasped through regular services (e.g. Sunday worship, Sunday school, etc…) As long as we attend those services, we get something out of it. In terms of physical presence, we are active. In terms of intellectual learning, we are passive most of the time.

As time goes by, once we are familiar with the basic content of the Christian Faith, it is getting harder and harder to learn more new things about the Faith through this mode of learning. The more we attend, the more the Christian faith becomes familiar. However, just familiar! That is the problem. We are not going anywhere with our familiarity. In other words, we get stuck. We are stagnant.

The ability to “scrutinize the obvious” is not natural to us. We must put some efforts to develop this ability. To scrutinize requires a lot more attention and energy than seeing. To study, to analyze, to ask questions are parts of our scrutiny. We are familiar with Jesus. (Don’t be humble and say that we don’t know much about Him. We don’t know everything about Him. Maybe we don’t know Him. But we do know about him.) Why don’t we “scrutinize the obvious”? Why don’t we devote three to six months to study one Gospel (e.g. the Gospel of Mark) or one aspect of Jesus’ teachings (e.g. the miracles of Jesus)? We are familiar with Jesus in general, but most of us are not familiar with the Jesus in Mark’s gospel or in Matthew’s gospel. Both gospels are similar, but each offers a unique portrait of Jesus. What about incarnation? We are familiar with incarnation: God became flesh and dwelled among us. But what else do we know about incarnation? What are some implications of the doctrine of incarnation? Can we read two Christian books on this topic and “scrutinize the obvious”? 

We can’t just show up on Sunday worship or Sunday school and hope that we can deepen our faith by attending them. Yes, they do have their rightful place in Christian education, for a community of faith is a teaching and learning community. We need a community to sharpen one another. However, besides these corporate means, if we fail to “scrutinize the obvious” on our own, we just end up being familiar with our Faith for the rest of our lives. John Stott said that a Christian’s greatest responsibility is growth. Growth is an organic term. It is lively and ongoing. It never stops. A plant never stops growing. It stops; it withers. Breakthrough familiarity is our task on earth. “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Tim. 6:12a, ESV).

From my viewpoint, I think it is not so fair to blame our familiar stage of the Christian Faith on the church even though the church does have an educational role for our growth. It is our own problems more than the problems of the church (and others). I’ve noticed that people who tend to blame everything on the church do not usually fulfill their own greatest responsibility. It sounds like our stagnation has everything to do with the church. But the church is not in our control. Thus, there is nothing we can do about our growth. We feel better about our familiar faith with this kind of mentality. The view of the church as the scapegoat prevents us from seeing our conditions as they are and taking full ownership of our familiar stage of faith.

For sure, the church as a whole will be held accountable on the Day of Judgment in regard with her role and function on earth. But first and foremost, each redeemed individual will be rebuked or rewarded with no exception.